Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Nº031 Nº032
Doug Ashford
been weathered. I saw how he trashed her, then slammed the apart- unfortunately went home early—he was full and satiated, his look a timeline, as were some of the more directly pertinent artworks,
ment door behind him. He has the delicacy to continue living with “business look.” So I was convinced “I didn’t even need to ignore while other indirect and metaphoric works were not anchored to
her to avoid hotel costs. He leaves her apartment and goes about it.” But Gesine saw something else. In his blotchy face she saw what points in time.
his business, visiting his new mistress, a married woman for whom she felt, as in a mirror. At first glance, the timeline format promoted a linear reading;
views to what was above and below the timeline. It opened views reaching associations between political and cultural events that
to the larger set of conditions articulated by the arrangement of render the historical period legible.
information brought into narrative armature, to reveal the far-
190 dOCUMENTA (13) | Catalog 1/3 The Book of Books | 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts 191
192 dOCUMENTA (13) | Catalog 1/3 The Book of Books | 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts 193
Nº033
Donna Haraway
SF: Speculative Fabulation
and String Figures
Consider a fictional multiple integral equation that is a flawed trope Terrapolis is networked re-enactments for flourishing in mortal ter-
and a serious joke in an effort to picture what an intersectional—or ran living and dying.
intra-actional—theory might look like in Terrapolis.2 Think of this
formalism as the mathematics of sf. Sf is that potent material semi- Terrapolis is multispecies storytelling, multispecies worlding in
otic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative femi- sf modes.
nism, science fiction, science fact, science fantasy—and, I suggest,
string figures. In looping threads and relays of patterning, this sf Terrapolis is open, not poor in world, full of connections and net-
practice is a model for worlding. Sf must also mean “so far,” open- worked re-enactments.8
ing up what is yet-to-come in protean time’s pasts, presents, and
futures. Terrapolis is a chimera of materials, languages, histories; a mongrel
of Greek and Latin.
Terrapolis is of and for humus, the stuff of guman, an old earthy In-
Terrapolis is a fictional integral equation, a speculative fabulation.4 do-European word for workers of the soil, not the stuff of homo,
that figure of the bright and airy sacred image of the same.
Terrapolis is an n-dimensional hyper volume; in ecological theory,
a niche space.5 Terrapolis is not a system, not even a hopeful 3rd-order or nth-
order cybernetic system; but its values are determinable, locat-
Terrapolis is a niche space for multispecies becoming-with.6 able, accountable, and open to change.